Buy a subscription

Home Contact Sitemap login Checkout

Farming Smarter

Farming Smarter
  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Who We Are
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
    • Contact Us
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Agronomy Research
    • Commercial Innovation
    • Field Tested
    • Knowledge & Network
  • What We Offer
    • What We Offer
    • Sponsorship Packages
    • Events
    • Research Projects
      • Research Projects
      • Agronomy Research Projects
      • Field Tested Projects
      • Commercial Innovation Projects
    • Subscriptions
      • Subscriptions
      • FS Agronomy Subscription
      • FS Digital Subscription
    • Smart Partner Program
    • Speakers
  • Get Involved
    • Get Involved
    • Jobs
    • Sponsorship
    • I want to help!
    • With On-farm Research
    • With Product Testing
    • With Small Plot Research
    • Internship Opportunities
    • Volunteer!
    • Support Research!
  • Learning Resources
    • Learning Resources
    • Conservation Agronomy
    • Magazine
    • Online Classroom (CEU)
    • News Articles
    • Videos
    • Publications & Reports
      • Publications & Reports
      • Published Papers
      • Research Reports
    • Podcasts
    • 360 Videos
Print This Page

The Healthy Soil Challenge - Soil Savvy

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

By Dr. Gubir Dhillon

Healthy soil isn't just vital for high crop productivity and grower profitability, it's foundational to long-term agricultural sustainability. Soil health implies the capacity of soil to provide required ecological services within an ecosystem without suffering from degradation.

In agricultural ecosystems, improving soil health incorporates various properties and functions, from building soil structure to increasing organic matter content or improving water holding capacity and nutrient cycling. 

However, soil health cannot be described through a single attribute and instead through the combined ability of multiple soil properties to provide desired ecosystem functions.

Intensive agriculture in the Canadian prairies over the last century has given rise to multiple soil deterioration threats such as erosion by wind and water, organic matter depletion, salinization, biodiversity loss, and compaction, etc.

The dry, windy climate in the southern Alberta region exacerbates soil erosion by warm westerly winds (known as chinook winds) that can melt the snow cover and frequently blow at high speeds, up to 150 km/h. Thus, it is vital to encourage adopting agronomic practices that can improve soil health and protect against soil deterioration.

These management practices can take multiple approaches to promote soil health such as minimizing soil disturbance through conservation tillage, maximizing vegetative covering on soil surfaces through fall-seeded cropping, improving landscape biodiversity through intercropping, and shelterbelt incorporation, and maximizing vegetative biomass input and soil carbon content through cover cropping

The following articles in this series will provide an in-depth description of agronomic management and benefits for each of these practices.

Farming Smarter

211034 Hwy 512, Lethbridge County, AB
T1J 5N9 Canada

Quick Links

Who We Are

What We Do

What We Offer

Get Involved

Learning Resources

More

Staff Directory

Contact

Copyright © Farming Smarter 2023. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions